AMAZON CONVERSION PROGRAM PROBLEM

Towards the end of October this year, the conversion program supplied by Amazon that is used in the publishing process for Kindle eBooks was updated. Following that change, the bird lists in the eBooks that I develop in Microsoft Word were not being presented correctly in tablet and phone Kindle reading apps. The conversion program introduced an indentation at the start of each paragraph in the lists. This didn’t happen on Kindle reading devices.

What this meant for the All the World’s Birds series of eBooks was that lists of bird species were no longer neatly left-aligned on tablets and phones. Also, because of the unwanted indentation, some lines were now too long and wrapped to the following line, even on the smallest font setting. The result on these reading devices was a mess.

Any ATWB title that was published prior to the end of October 2018 was unaffected. So customers are still able to purchase these titles with the confidence that they will be formatted acceptably on any reading device (Kindle/tablet/phone).

Unfortunately, before I spotted what was happening I updated the content of three existing titles and published one new one. The affected titles were:

All the World’s Birds 2019 : A Companion Guide – PART-BY-PART
PART THREE: SANDGROUSE to OWLS
PART FOUR: FROGMOUTHS to HORNBILLS
PART FIVE: JACAMARS to OLD WORLD PARROTS

I highlighted the problem to Amazon and they appear to be experimenting with a new conversion program that more faithfully reproduces the intended layout. I managed to pick up and use this new program for two of the above titles: PART THREE and PART FOUR, which are now neatly laid out for use on all reading devices. However, the new conversion program is still being worked on – it comes and goes! So I still haven’t been able to re-publish the remaining two affected titles. With luck this will all be sorted out soon and normal service can resume.

Meanwhile, I have annotated the Description text for the remaining two corrupted titles, warning customers not to purchase them unless they intend to use them only on Kindle readers, and otherwise recommending that they postpone their purchase until after the conversion program problem has been resolved.

I first raised this problem with Amazon at the start of November, but five weeks later I am still in the situation where:

I cannot publish any new titles (I have five eBooks ready that I wanted to publish in December)

I cannot update the content of any existing titles

I have two remaining published titles that do not display correctly on tablets and phones

In the lead up to Christmas this situation has severely affected the extent of online marketing I can do. It has also somewhat dampened my enthusiasm for developing new titles.

Nevertheless, I shall follow through on my promise to make four titles available free-of-charge for a limited period. The following four eBooks – one from each ATWB series – will be free to download from Amazon from Sunday December 16 to Thursday December 20 USA Pacific time:

All the World’s Birds 2019 : A Companion Guide – PART-BY-PART
PART THREE: SANDGROUSE to OWLS

All the World’s Birds 2019 : A Companion Guide – WORLD REGIONS
SOUTH AMERICA/MIDDLE AMERICA VOLUME 1: NON-PASSERINES:
RHEAS to AFRICAN & NEW WORLD PARROTS

All the World’s Birds 2019 : A Companion Guide – FOCUS ON
INDIAN SUBCONTINENT VOLUME 2: PASSERINES: BROADBILLS to BUNTINGS

To see all the currently available titles in the ‘All the World’s Birds’ series, search in theBookssection of your local Amazon site forATWB. Or, click here to see all ATWB titles onAmazon US; or here to see all ATWB titles onAmazon UK.

The ‘All the World’s Birds’ series of Companion Guides derives its taxonomy, English names and scientific names from The IOC World Bird List, an open access resource maintained by the International Ornithological Congress (IOC). The IOC bird list is hosted on a dedicated World Bird Names website, which provides access to the list in various different formats. The version of the IOC bird list used in the ‘All the World’s Birds 2019’ series of Companion Guides is Version 8.2, published June 27 2018.

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About Charles R Stubbs

Charles has earned his living by writing for more than 10 years. His first novel, a thriller, 'Web of Deceit', has been published as an eBook on Amazon.
Previously a senior executive in the UK telecommunications industry, since 2001 Charles has crafted sales and marketing literature for major organisations – some of them household names – enabling them to improve their business performance.